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Guide to Physician Assistant Employment Contracts – 3/29/2013

According to the California Department of Consumer Affairs, a physician assistant, or PA, is a licensed and highly skilled health care professional, trained to provide patient evaluation, education, and health care services. Physician assistants wear many hats. Not only are you expected to do physician related activities, but in most instances you’re also required to do various administrative tasks. Physician assistants have to work with many hats and over time are expected to replace the Physician on staff. With all of these responsibilities, it is expected for physician assistants to negotiate certain terms in their employment contracts. These terms range from overtime pay to insurance benefits; but no matter what the terms are, negotiation is a must to get the benefits you want and deserve.

Never do an oral contract

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, physician assistants make a median of $86,410 per year. This income has increased 30 percent faster than expected and will continue to increase over the next 10 years. With such competitive
salaries, physician assistants often ask for more than what is being offered in the written contract. Employers may agree to increase the salary verbally, but legally, this type of contract is not recognized. When negotiating the terms of the contract such as salary or other benefits, anything agreed to verbally should be added to the contract or a new contract should be drawn up outlining the new terms.

Negotiating a term that is not included in the contract
Negotiating contract terms is expected in most instances. Although you may feel indifferent about tweaking the terms, you are expected to discuss them at least and the HR manager may ask if you have anything to add to the contract; this is the time to bring up any changes.

Most physician assistant contracts include:

Start date

Work schedule

Salary

On-call schedule including on-call pay

Health, life, dental and disability insurance terms

Vacation days

As a potential employee to a healthcare facility, these are very important terms that should be included in your contract. However, sometimes employers simply don't add them, and if you overlook them and begin working, you cannot then negotiate them to be added into your contract. Look over at a sample physician assistant employment contract to see what terms should be included in yours, then negotiate those terms to be added in before signing the contract and agreeing to it. It never hurts to ask them to be included. According to PA World, oral contracts can still be enforced although they are harder to prove.

Work obligations

While Physician assistants are expected to wear many hats in the facility, that doesn't mean that they should be expected to do every job presented to them once employed. A physician assistant employment contract must be specific and list all work duties to minimize confusion after employment. If you have any questions about these duties, ask the human resource manager or consultant for help.
To conclude, as a PA, you should negotiate terms that complement your educational background and work experience.